Monday, July 21, 2003

I Could've Been A Useful Idiot

Tacitus has a great post with interesting comments which degenerate into a "You're anti-American!", "No, you're anti-American" exchange.

Ain't America great! We allow loonies on the left who think Bush is lying about oppression of womem in Saudi Arabia. We allow loonies on the right who think the UN is coming in black helicopters paid for by the Trilateral Commission. We've got people on the right calling all liberals anti-American traitors. We've got people on the left calling all conservatives imperialistic anti-American goons.

It's all free speech, folks! Consider that the dope holding the "I support the troops when they shoot their officers" sign may think that he is a great American, following in the footsteps of Henry Thoreau and those wonderful Sixties kids who foiled those evil Presidents Johnson and Nixon. I think he and those wonderful Sixties kids are/were useful idiots and anti-American dopes, but who am I to tell you what he feels in his heart? Maybe he's thinking that it is great to live in America where he can fight the powers that be. Either way, pointing out to him that he is a dope won't change his mind, it'll just make him mad. I just missed being one of those wonderful Sixties kids by a few years, and I'm sad to say I probably would have been one of those useful idiots. I wouldn't have reacted well to being called anti-American either. I'm awful tired of these "Clinton/Bush is a lying creep" exchanges. Do they really improve US policy? Or are they just partisan politics and venting?